New VA chief spent career seeking out tough tasks

NEW YORK TIMES

July 29, 2014

Photo: Charles Dharapak, STF

Former Procter and Gamble executive Robert McDonald, President Barack Obama's nominee as the next Veterans Affairs secretary, listens as Obama makes a statement at the Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington, Monday, June 30, 2014. If confirmed by the Senate, McDonald would succeed Eric Shinseki, the retired four-star general who resigned last month as the scope of the issues at veterans' hospitals became apparent. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Former Procter and Gamble executive Robert McDonald, President...

After nearly drowning as a child, Robert McDonald was so terrified of water that despite earning dozens of Boy Scout merit badges, he refused to take the swim test to become an Eagle Scout.

But during his first year at the U.S. Military Academy, it was swim or quit, since every plebe is required to jump off a high dive with a weighted pack, boots and rifle.

So McDonald conquered his fear and completed the test.

In the many years since, former cadets and colleagues have cited that story to make a larger point about McDonald, who on Tuesday was confirmed by the Senate to be the new secretary of veterans affairs.

As McDonald himself put it in an interview several years ago, "I had a goal that was bigger than my fear."

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With his confirmation, McDonald, 61, may have been handed the biggest challenge of his life: responsibility for leading a vast federal agency scarred by bureaucratic dysfunction and investigations, growing caseloads, a personnel shortage and faked waiting lists intended to cover up delays in health care.

The previous secretary, Eric Shinseki, resigned under intense bipartisan criticism, and the agency was left with such a long list of problems that Sen. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., who is the chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, bluntly asked McDonald at a hearing last week, "Why do you want this job?"